Bank of America Corp. (BAC) told Fannie Mae it refuses to cooperate with the U.S. mortgage firm’s new stance on loan buybacks, setting the lender up for a potential surge in claims and penalties.

The bank is disputing Fannie Mae’s demand that lenders repurchase mortgages or cover any losses themselves if an insurer drops coverage, Bank of America said this month in a regulatory filing. The lender, ranked second by assets among U.S. banks, said it “does not intend to repurchase loans” under what it deems to be new rules, and the refusal may trigger penalties or other sanctions.

Here’s a lesson for the government and Ally Financial in particular: With bank investors fretting about the potential costs of soured-mortgage claims, it is best to get the details out in the open.

That’s the opposite of how Ally and Freddie Mac handled a payment last year of $325 million by the firm to the mortgage company to settle mortgage-repurchase claims. Neither Ally, General Motors’ former financing arm now majority-owned by the government, nor government-owned Freddie disclosed the amount of the settlement when it occurred. The fact that a deal was struck at all was only disclosed by Ally and …

Again, the million dollar question is, “Who is the Real Party in Interest as Plaintiff in foreclosure cases?”

PPIP Funds’ Toxic Asset Holdings Hit $10 Billion

04/21/2010 By: Carrie Bay DSNEWS.com

Private equity investment funds, in collaboration with the U.S. Treasury, have relieved the market of $10 billion in souring real estate assets, purchased through the federal government’s Legacy Securities Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP).

PPIP was unveiled just over a year ago, under the guise of the original intention of the government’s $700 billion bailout package when it was sold to Congress – to remove so-called toxic mortgages from the system.

The program has been widely criticized for its slow start, though new data from the Treasury shows it’s beginning to gain momentum. Still, some market-watchers say the delay means PPIP, at best, will have only a marginal impact, since private-investor appetite for distressed assetdeals is growing and the previously gridlocked secondary mortgage market is starting to show signs of movement.

The Treasury published its second quarterly summary of PPIP activity Tuesday, which showed that the PPIP fund managers’ holdings nearly tripled compared to the previous three months. As of March 31, 2010, the eight funds participating in the program had acquired just over $10 billion in eligible assets, compared to $3.4 billion at the end of 2009.

By the Treasury’s calculations, the PPIP investment funds have $25.1 billion of total purchasing power, which includes $6.3 billion in private capital. The Treasury has matched the private equity contribution dollar-for-dollar, and also provided $12.5 billion in debt capital.

The Treasury cautioned that because the funds are in the very early stages of their three-year investment periods, it’s premature to draw any meaningful conclusions about individual performance, but the report did include some preliminary stats on each fund’s returns so far.

The fund managed by Angelo, Gordon & Co. and GE Capital Real Estate is registering the highest rate of return at 20.6 percent.